Considering that they're only delivering that much gameplay, it would have to be over-the-top awesome gameplay for it to be worth what they're asking for it.
It's almost that they're asking too much for the game at this point.
Heh... Crytek wasn't the person you were the customer for on that. For that matter, even if you bought the full-priced one, you weren't their customer.
The Publisher was their customer as they're independent of Ubisoft. The Distributor was the Publisher's customer as they bought it from the Publisher. The Retailer was the Distributor's customer as they bought it from them.
While there's some meshing of some of this at the Publisher/Distributor level of things, unless you're buying direct sales from the Publisher or Studio, you're NOT their customer. You're the RETAILER's. There's a reason why they've structured things the way they have- and it's to insulate themselves from the customer relationship with you. You have rights. Even in the US, even though they're working on removing them. But you only have rights with respect to the people you bought it from.
Now, with the aforementioned line of thought, you paid the retailer that dollar- Crytek already GOT their money up front. If the game sold reasonably well, they'd get another chance to do it again the same way. When you paid the retailer that dollar, you helped them eat a loss on shelf space, etc. that they were incurring when the game wouldn't sell itself at original retail price.
Actually, they typically don't because of reasons of "piracy".
Typically, most resellers won't take back for a refund things like music, movies, or games once they've been opened- and use that as a reason (Though I've heard managers at places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart run up the "it's illegal" flag up the pole when trying to refuse the return, never mind that it's nothing of the sort and more of a policy they've taken on- because the media industry won't take opened goods back...)
No... It doesn't. It's an option piece in a bootloader, much more like the XP/Visa or LILO/GRUB loaders than anything else.
If you think maintaining the ability to add line-items really costs them all that much, I've got a bridge to sell you.
OtherOS revealed a gaping hole in their DRM that they can't really fix all that easily or well- such that they're pulling the plug on it to buy themselves at least a little bit of time before the torrent of cracks on their titles really begins.
Now, one could make a case that this cost them money... No...their DRM being flawed (as has been shown with ALL DRM...) is what cost them money- and it remains to be seen if it actually will cost them money overall or just that they'll gain slightly less profits than before.
Ah...but SCEA, which is where the loss occurs, loses money on the deal- and it's SCEA that's DOING this, not all of Sony. I can assure you, they're not considering this from the lost cash angle- and even if it was that, I can assure you that the gains in BD sales aren't being factored into it all that much- differing division and only the bigwigs up at the highest levels ever think in those terms, not the division people (the ones DOING this...).
Someone revealed they have a gaping hole in the hypervisor and the nature thereof. It's trying to buy time putting a finger in that hole in the dike- not costs...
Uh... You DO realize that you are now using a console that's only marginally better in the regard you mention- and that has made remarks along the lines of FOSS being "unconstitutional" and "a cancer" and has threatened patent litigation against Linux companies for years now?
It still amazes me to no end whatsoever that people will have problems with the stuff Sony's doing, be all big and fine about Linux- and then go and willingly use a Microsoft product like the 360 without any qualms whatsoever, thinking it's fine or at least better than this stuff with the PS3. It all verges on cognitive dissonance, it does...
For the people who'd implemented the codecs for h.264, it's going to be the same level of task for doing VP8. And it's not that it's standardization that's the problem- it's that coding efficient DSP code is a lot like coding efficient shader code for GPUs. It's a different skillset than GP CPU coding usually requires.
And this doesn't get into that you'd only need to do it ONCE for C64x within OMAP2/OMAP3/OMAP4- and handle quite a large range of devices out of the gate. And then do the same for anything using a Blackfin, and ditto Qualcomm's stuff.
The Droid doesn't do it in CPU software, but DSP software- just like the iPhone/iPod.
People keep bandying about "hardware" decoding, not realizing that there's quite a bit less of dedicated silicon and quite a bit more of stream processing hardware out there doing this stuff.
Not a single one of those devices have a piece of immutable silicon driving the decode/playback process there.
In truth, the bulk of the devices you speak of use DSPs because it's cheaper to use a DSP and avoid needing custom silicon for the differing formats (each of which would need a different dedicated decoder chip...) that the devices have to support.
The only devices that have a problem with this would be something with explicitly dedicated h.264 silicon. Which, surprisingly, are very few overall in the scheme of things. Most of the stuff out there is DSP or GPGPU driven. Seriously.
The iPhone's "hardware" is a C64x DSP from TI that resides within the SoC they used. Ditto for the Droid. Much of the space people keep expressing concerns over doesn't have absolutely dedicated silicon for this task.
Now, if you said that the vendors wouldn't be as likely to implement a differing codec for the DSP, unless demand made it happen, you'd be right (and you'd have me agree...)- but like everything out there that's mostly phasing out MPEG1/2, you'd probably see that happen if it takes off in any way. h.264's entrenched, yes, but not so much so as most would be believing at this time. All it'd take is a few major players and it'd be yesterday's news- much like Betamax was.
Ever check out what the "hardware" is inside an iPhone (Note: The iPhone uses an OMAP3 SoC...) that handles all that decoding of MP3, WMA, MPEG1/2, MPEG4, and h.264, all of which have differing requirements and silicon if you use dedicated hardware?
Part of the specs for the SoC they're using for the phone, which comprises the bulk of the device's actual functionality, includes a C64x DSP.
THAT is the "hardware" you speak of. DSP's are very configurable- in fact, it'd not be hard at all to implement Theora, VP8, or Dirac on it, if you wanted to get to specifics on it.
In the case of the Challenger disaster, it was a serious design flaw (look at the booster designs of the Titan II and the Space Shuttle...particularly the join seams and the o-ring placements...) coupled with low temps and a batch of politics.
In the cases of what you cited, there was some serious dangers involved (and still are, really- for the reasons you state...) with the rockets, even WITH solid designs. Most of what you claim in your commentary weren't due to obvious design flaws- and luck had a bit less to do with the LEM ignite, and the engine blow-ups are more due to the inherent nature of effectively detonating the fuel- much like you indicate.
Nothing new. They've been at selling Star Trek branded USB Thumb drives with the movie on it in a DRMed format for a bit now. Showed up about 1-2 months ago at Fry's. I suspected that the HD's with that same story would show up shortly in the consumer boxed drives. (And people wonder why I would rather have the OEM bulk-pack stuff...)
Heh... Palm bought that OS because they were looking for better answers than they had at the time- and BeOS was flogging itself as an IA (set top internet appliance...) OS at that time. And, for that application, it actually made raftloads of sense- light and lithe, to the point that using goofball chips like the National Semiconductor Geode GX wasn't so much of a disadvantage. Unfortunately for BeOS, the floor fell out of that market (because it wasn't modeled right, coupled with the dot-com bust...) and they had nowhere else to go.
Palm buying them salvaged the investor money, but left Palm with something that they ultimately couldn't use.
I think it's not that the software's less valuable, per se- it's that we're worrying about things like Facebook, MySpace, etc. which aren't really in the same category of software. The software to make the CNC multi-axis machines go is rather valuable- without the machine it's useless, but without the software, the machine's equally worthless. I just wouldn't be putting investment effort into things like Facebook. In fact, if Facebook went bye-bye, little of value would actually be lost. Seriously.
And, I think that's what the GP poster is on about.
We've gotten where the sort of stuff like Facebook is more important than producing things of value. We should be #1 or #2 in things like the CNC space. We should be producing as many chips as the Asia market produces and we consume. But...that's not the case, now is it?
Indeed. However, without the hardware, the software's not much use either.
I think the point the GP poster's trying to get at is that there's much less of this stuff being showed, funded, etc. by US business and more things like Facebook which provides NOTHING of any real tangible value and has loads of money to do that nothing with.
To be sure, there's some innovation, building, etc. going on in the US- there's a renaissance about to hopefully start here (the beginnings are showing- whether it takes off, on the other hand...) in the States along those lines.
Unfortunately, most of the sort of missions that can be accomplished are larger, longer term than that- NASA won't get to do much of anything if they take that and will dwindle even further down the hill.
Slashdot Mirror
Considering that they're only delivering that much gameplay, it would have to be over-the-top awesome gameplay for it to be worth what they're asking for it.
It's almost that they're asking too much for the game at this point.
Heh... Crytek wasn't the person you were the customer for on that. For that matter, even if you bought the full-priced one, you weren't their customer.
The Publisher was their customer as they're independent of Ubisoft.
The Distributor was the Publisher's customer as they bought it from the Publisher.
The Retailer was the Distributor's customer as they bought it from them.
While there's some meshing of some of this at the Publisher/Distributor level of things, unless you're buying direct sales from the Publisher or Studio, you're NOT their customer. You're the RETAILER's. There's a reason why they've structured things the way they have- and it's to insulate themselves from the customer relationship with you. You have rights. Even in the US, even though they're working on removing them. But you only have rights with respect to the people you bought it from.
Now, with the aforementioned line of thought, you paid the retailer that dollar- Crytek already GOT their money up front. If the game sold reasonably well, they'd get another chance to do it again the same way. When you paid the retailer that dollar, you helped them eat a loss on shelf space, etc. that they were incurring when the game wouldn't sell itself at original retail price.
10? Try a bit longer than that. It's just that they've gotten much worse over the last 10-ish years.
Actually, they typically don't because of reasons of "piracy".
Typically, most resellers won't take back for a refund things like music, movies, or games once they've been opened- and use that as a reason (Though I've heard managers at places like Best Buy and Wal-Mart run up the "it's illegal" flag up the pole when trying to refuse the return, never mind that it's nothing of the sort and more of a policy they've taken on- because the media industry won't take opened goods back...)
Heh... It is that if the game demo leads you to believe the game actually stinks.
If it has the opposite effect, then perhaps the game wasn't very good to begin with, hm?
If they have to resort to blind hype just to be able to sell the title...perhaps that's where their problems lie instead of "piracy"...
No... It doesn't. It's an option piece in a bootloader, much more like the XP/Visa or LILO/GRUB loaders than anything else.
If you think maintaining the ability to add line-items really costs them all that much, I've got a bridge to sell you.
OtherOS revealed a gaping hole in their DRM that they can't really fix all that easily or well- such that they're pulling the plug on it to buy themselves at least a little bit of time before the torrent of cracks on their titles really begins.
Now, one could make a case that this cost them money... No...their DRM being flawed (as has been shown with ALL DRM...) is what cost them money- and it remains to be seen if it actually will cost them money overall or just that they'll gain slightly less profits than before.
Ah...but SCEA, which is where the loss occurs, loses money on the deal- and it's SCEA that's DOING this, not all of Sony. I can assure you, they're not considering this from the lost cash angle- and even if it was that, I can assure you that the gains in BD sales aren't being factored into it all that much- differing division and only the bigwigs up at the highest levels ever think in those terms, not the division people (the ones DOING this...).
Someone revealed they have a gaping hole in the hypervisor and the nature thereof. It's trying to buy time putting a finger in that hole in the dike- not costs...
Uh... You DO realize that you are now using a console that's only marginally better in the regard you mention- and that has made remarks along the lines of FOSS being "unconstitutional" and "a cancer" and has threatened patent litigation against Linux companies for years now?
It still amazes me to no end whatsoever that people will have problems with the stuff Sony's doing, be all big and fine about Linux- and then go and willingly use a Microsoft product like the 360 without any qualms whatsoever, thinking it's fine or at least better than this stuff with the PS3. It all verges on cognitive dissonance, it does...
For the people who'd implemented the codecs for h.264, it's going to be the same level of task for doing VP8. And it's not that it's standardization that's the problem- it's that coding efficient DSP code is a lot like coding efficient shader code for GPUs. It's a different skillset than GP CPU coding usually requires.
And this doesn't get into that you'd only need to do it ONCE for C64x within OMAP2/OMAP3/OMAP4- and handle quite a large range of devices out of the gate. And then do the same for anything using a Blackfin, and ditto Qualcomm's stuff.
The Droid doesn't do it in CPU software, but DSP software- just like the iPhone/iPod.
People keep bandying about "hardware" decoding, not realizing that there's quite a bit less of dedicated silicon and quite a bit more of stream processing hardware out there doing this stuff.
They ALL do it in software- on a DSP. Even the iPhone/iPod. Check out the SoC on those devices sometime... ;-)
Actually, do you even realize just how little the dedicated hardware is implemented out there?
iPhone - DSP.
Droid - DSP.
Backflip - DSP.
N900 - DSP.
Not a single one of those devices have a piece of immutable silicon driving the decode/playback process there.
In truth, the bulk of the devices you speak of use DSPs because it's cheaper to use a DSP and avoid needing custom silicon for the differing formats (each of which would need a different dedicated decoder chip...) that the devices have to support.
Indeed. This move might even bring that about...if they're smart.
The only devices that have a problem with this would be something with explicitly dedicated h.264 silicon. Which, surprisingly, are very few overall in the scheme of things. Most of the stuff out there is DSP or GPGPU driven. Seriously.
The iPhone's "hardware" is a C64x DSP from TI that resides within the SoC they used. Ditto for the Droid. Much of the space people keep expressing concerns over doesn't have absolutely dedicated silicon for this task.
Now, if you said that the vendors wouldn't be as likely to implement a differing codec for the DSP, unless demand made it happen, you'd be right (and you'd have me agree...)- but like everything out there that's mostly phasing out MPEG1/2, you'd probably see that happen if it takes off in any way. h.264's entrenched, yes, but not so much so as most would be believing at this time. All it'd take is a few major players and it'd be yesterday's news- much like Betamax was.
Ever check out what the "hardware" is inside an iPhone (Note: The iPhone uses an OMAP3 SoC...) that handles all that decoding of MP3, WMA, MPEG1/2, MPEG4, and h.264, all of which have differing requirements and silicon if you use dedicated hardware?
Part of the specs for the SoC they're using for the phone, which comprises the bulk of the device's actual functionality, includes a C64x DSP.
THAT is the "hardware" you speak of. DSP's are very configurable- in fact, it'd not be hard at all to implement Theora, VP8, or Dirac on it, if you wanted to get to specifics on it.
In the case of the Challenger disaster, it was a serious design flaw (look at the booster designs of the Titan II and the Space Shuttle...particularly the join seams and the o-ring placements...) coupled with low temps and a batch of politics.
In the cases of what you cited, there was some serious dangers involved (and still are, really- for the reasons you state...) with the rockets, even WITH solid designs. Most of what you claim in your commentary weren't due to obvious design flaws- and luck had a bit less to do with the LEM ignite, and the engine blow-ups are more due to the inherent nature of effectively detonating the fuel- much like you indicate.
The bandwidth is awesome for that...it's the latency that's the killer in many cases. :-D
Nothing new. They've been at selling Star Trek branded USB Thumb drives with the movie on it in a DRMed format for a bit now. Showed up about 1-2 months ago at Fry's. I suspected that the HD's with that same story would show up shortly in the consumer boxed drives. (And people wonder why I would rather have the OEM bulk-pack stuff...)
Heh... Palm bought that OS because they were looking for better answers than they had at the time- and BeOS was flogging itself as an IA (set top internet appliance...) OS at that time. And, for that application, it actually made raftloads of sense- light and lithe, to the point that using goofball chips like the National Semiconductor Geode GX wasn't so much of a disadvantage. Unfortunately for BeOS, the floor fell out of that market (because it wasn't modeled right, coupled with the dot-com bust...) and they had nowhere else to go.
Palm buying them salvaged the investor money, but left Palm with something that they ultimately couldn't use.
Indeed- but it's a very nice one, from the looks of it. I wouldn't mind having access to one of them.
As niftily as it was carving it up, it almost seems to crave it... That trophy was damned cool watching the video
doing it up like that.
I think it's not that the software's less valuable, per se- it's that we're worrying about things like Facebook, MySpace, etc. which aren't
really in the same category of software. The software to make the CNC multi-axis machines go is rather valuable- without the machine
it's useless, but without the software, the machine's equally worthless. I just wouldn't be putting investment effort into things like
Facebook. In fact, if Facebook went bye-bye, little of value would actually be lost. Seriously.
And, I think that's what the GP poster is on about.
We've gotten where the sort of stuff like Facebook is more important than producing things of value. We should be #1 or #2 in things
like the CNC space. We should be producing as many chips as the Asia market produces and we consume. But...that's not the case,
now is it?
Indeed. However, without the hardware, the software's not much use either.
I think the point the GP poster's trying to get at is that there's much less of this stuff being showed, funded, etc. by US business and more things like Facebook which provides NOTHING of any real tangible value and has loads of money to do that nothing with.
To be sure, there's some innovation, building, etc. going on in the US- there's a renaissance about to hopefully start here (the beginnings are showing- whether it takes off, on the other hand...) in the States along those lines.
Unfortunately, most of the sort of missions that can be accomplished are larger, longer term than that- NASA won't get to do much of anything if they take that and will dwindle even further down the hill.